Learning geography, especially on a global scale, involves the exercise of a great deal of spatial imagination, often in three dimensions. The ability to use this kind of imagination is usually crude in the very young and must be slowly nurtured and developed during the educational process. Moreover, in the early stages of the development of the necessary skills, different children utilize different learning modalities. Even the same child at different levels of development may use different learning modes. An acceptable general method of developing this skill is to begin with the examination of highly concrete representations of many geographic and geometric concepts, using aural, visual, and tactile reinforcement. A comfortable familiarity with such concrete representations lays a foundation for the development of a more abstract framework in which a student may organize the concepts involved.
To this end, educators have developed a number of visually or tactually stimulating models of geographical phenomena, such as relief maps and variations of the well known terrestrial globe. Many of these devices are suitable for a form of programmed teaching in which a terrestrial globe is built up piece by piece from a large number of separate parts in the form of a kit. An example of such a device is disclosed in my own U.S. Pat. No. 3,374,560.
These models fall short of the ideal teaching aid in a number of respects. For instance, many of the prior devices miss an opportunity to interest the very young by lacking a sufficient element of "play". On the other hand, terrestrial globes have been made in the form of puzzles in which the element of play has defeated the educational value of the device. In such cases, there is insufficient direct visual or tactile reinforcement of geographical ideas. Some of the prior terrestrial globes allow the placement of component parts in geographically inconsistent positions, thereby reinforcing inaccurate geographic relationships. Many such globes can be assembled only by a person already familiar with terrestrial geography, offering no assistance to the untutored student who is working or playing alone. Further, the means used to attach component parts to these globes have tended to be either unreliable or overly complicated for a young person whose hand/eye coordination is not fully developed. In general, prior globes have been designed with insufficient attention to the differing cognitive and perceptual levels, learning modes, and coordination ability of different age groups and individuals. These and other difficulties experienced with the prior art devices have been obviated in a novel manner by the present invention.
It is, therefore, an outstanding object of the invention to provide a teaching aid in the form of a terrestrial globe which may be partially assembled by the student or teacher in an interesting and pleasing manner, in order to reinforce the geographical ideas involved.
Another object of this invention is the provision of a teaching aid in the form of an instructional globe having sufficient elements of play to hold the interest of a distractible young student.
A further object of the present invention is the provision of an instructional globe which may be partly assembled by a geographically naive student by means of a series of visual or tactile cues to the proper placement of the component parts.
Another object of the present invention is the provision of an instructional globe with the flexibility to be used to teach either several students at different ability levels or a single student with progressing abilities and changing learning modalities.
It is another object of the instant invention to provide an instructional globe which may be partially assembled by means which are reliable and easily manipulated without requiring highly developed coordination.
A further object of the present invention is the provision of an instructional globe which is simple in construction, inexpensive to manufacture, and capable of a long life of useful service with a minimum of maintenance.
With these and other objects in view, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the invention resides in the combination of parts set forth in the specification and covered by the claims appended hereto.